Jimmy Stewart stars in Harvey

Author

Website Name

Year Published

Title

URL

Access Date

February 17, 2018

Publisher

A+E Networks

On this day in 1950, the actor James Stewart stars in Harvey, a drama about an eccentric man whose best friend is a giant invisible rabbit. Directed by Henry Koster and based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Mary Chase, Harvey earned Stewart the fourth Best Actor Oscar nomination of his career. Considered one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest leading men, Stewart appeared in some 80 movies during his career, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story and It’s a Wonderful Life, and was best known for his portrayals of decent, idealistic men.

Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania. At Princeton University, he performed in musical comedies with the Triangle Club before graduating in 1932 with a degree in architecture. There wasn’t a great demand for architects in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression, so Stewart turned to acting, landing his first big role on Broadway in 1934 in Yellow Jack. The following year he signed a contract with MGM and made his big-screen debut in The Murder Man, starring Spencer Tracy. He went on to appear in such movies as You Can’t Take It With You (1938); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), in which his performance as an idealistic senator catapulted him to stardom and earned him his first Best Actor Oscar nomination; Destry Rides Again (1939), in which he played a marshal opposite Marlene Dietrich; and The Philadelphia Story (1940), in which he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. In 1941, at the age of 33, Stewart joined the military as a pilot. Before he returned home in 1945, he reportedly flew 20 bombing missions over Germany.

In 1946, Stewart starred in the director Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. According to Stewart’s 1997 obituary in the New York Times: “His archetypal role (and his own favorite) was that of George Bailey, the small-town banker in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ Frank Capra’s moralistic fantasy in which the hero is rescued from suicide by a pixieish angel who shows him how much meaner life would have been in his hometown without him. The 1946 feature-length Christmas card was a failure among audiences, who dismissed it as overly sentimental, but in later decades it became one of the most popular movies ever made and a holiday staple on television.”

After Stewart’s acclaimed performance in Harvey, he appeared in such films as The Glenn Miller Story (1954), in which he played the popular big-band leader; Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), in which he played a wheelchair-bound voyeur photographer; The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956); and The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), which featured Stewart as the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh. His films during the 1950s also include Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), in which he starred as a retired detective opposite Kim Novak; and Anatomy of a Murder (1959), for which he earned his fifth Oscar nomination. During the 1960s, Stewart’s movie credits included The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and The Shootist (1976).

His final movie was the 1991 animated feature An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, in which he voiced the character of Wylie. Stewart died in Beverly Hills, California on July 2, 1997, at the age of 89.

Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Also on this day

The cornerstone is laid for a presidential residence in the newly designated capital city of Washington. In 1800, President John Adams became the first president to reside in the executive mansion, which soon became known as the “White House” because its white-gray Virginia freestone contrasted strikingly with the red brick...

On this day in 1775, the Continental Congress authorizes construction and administration of the first American naval force—the precursor to the United States Navy.
Since the outbreak of open hostilities with the British in April, little consideration had been given to protection by sea until Congress received news that a British...

The world’s first art museum on wheels—an “inspiration for the nation,” says a representative from the Smithsonian–opens today in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was called the Artmobile. At the dedication ceremony, the state’s governor declared that the project “initiates something new in the cultural and spiritual life of the Commonwealth which...

The voters of Ohio send Clement Vallandigham to a resounding defeat in the fall gubernatorial election. As leader of the Copperheads, or anti-war Democrats, Vallandigham was an important and highly visible critic of the Republicans’ war policy, particularly the emancipation of slaves.
Vallandigham was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives...

Movie audiences in America are treated to the science-fiction thriller, The Amazing Colossal Man. The film revolves around a character named Colonel Manning, who strays too close to the test of an atomic device in the Nevada desert and is bombarded with “plutonium rays.” This was but one of...

The Colorado grand jury investigating the case of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, who was murdered in December 1996, is dismissed and the Boulder County district attorney announces no indictments will be made due to insufficient evidence.
On the morning of December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey discovered her 6-year-old daughter was...

On this day in 2010, the last of 33 miners trapped nearly half a mile underground for more than two months at a caved-in mine in northern Chile, are rescued. The miners survived longer than anyone else trapped underground in recorded history.
The miners’ ordeal began on August 5, 2010, when...

The Continental Congress authorizes construction and administration of the first American naval force—the precursor of the United States Navy.
Since the outbreak of open hostilities with the British in April, little consideration had been given to protection by sea until Congress received news that a British naval fleet was on its...

During the War of 1812, British and Indian forces under Sir Isaac Brock defeat Americans under General Stephen Van Rensselaer at the Battle of Queenstown Heights, on the Niagara frontier in Ontario, Canada. The British victory, in which more than 1,000 U.S. troops were killed, wounded, or captured, effectively ended...

B’nai B’rith, the oldest Jewish service organization in the world, is founded in New York City by Henry Jones and 11 others. B’nai B’rith, meaning “Sons of the Covenant,” organized its first lodge in November, and Isaac Dittenhoefer was elected the first president. The fraternal organization went on to become...

Four Palestinians hijack a Lufthansa airliner and demand the release of 11 imprisoned members of Germany’s Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, also known as the Red Army Faction. The Red Army Faction was a group of ultra-left revolutionaries who terrorized Germany for three decades, assassinating more than 30 corporate, military, and government...

On this day in 1943, 26-year-old poet Robert Lowell is sentenced to jail for a year for evading the draft. Lowell refused to be drafted because he objected to saturation bombing in Europe and other Allied tactics. He served the term in New York’s West Street jail.
Lowell was born to...

In a 35-year career that ran from the rockabilly genius of "Lonely Weekends" (1960) to the Countrypolitan splendor of "Behind Closed Doors" (1973), the versatile and soulful Charlie Rich earned eleven #1 hits on the Country charts and one crossover smash with the #1 pop hit "The Most Beautiful Girl"...

On this day in 1845, a majority of the citizens of the independent Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution, that when accepted by the Congress, will make Texas the 28th American state.
Despite having fought a war to win their independence from their old colonial master, Mexico, the people of...

On this day in 1792, the cornerstone of the White House is laid in the nation’s new capital, Washington, D.C.
George Washington, who had been in office just over a year when the site for the capital was determined, asked a French architect and city planner named Pierre L’Enfant to design...

On October 13, 1967, the Anaheim Amigos lose to the Oakland Oaks, 134-129, in the inaugural game of the American Basketball Association. In its first season, the ABA included 11 teams: the Pittsburgh Pipers, Minnesota Muskies, Indiana Pacers, Kentucky Colonels and New Jersey Americans played in the Eastern Division, and...

Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara declares at a news conference in Saigon that he found that military operations have “progressed very satisfactorily since 1965.”
McNamara had arrived in Saigon on October 11 for his eighth fact-finding visit to South Vietnam. He conferred with General William Westmoreland, the senior U.S. military...

In a report prepared at the request of President Nixon, counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson explains that smashing the Viet Cong is a prerequisite for solving the political troubles of South Vietnam. After a five-week secret mission to Saigon in September and early October at the request of the...

On this day in 1915, the 21-year-old Scottish poet Charles Hamilton Sorley is killed by a German sniper’s bullet during the Battle of Loos.
The son of a university professor in Aberdeen and a promising scholar himself, Sorley decided to spend a year studying in Germany in 1913 before continuing his...

On this day in 1943, the government of Italy declares war on its former Axis partner Germany and joins the battle on the side of the Allies.
With Mussolini deposed from power and the collapse of the fascist government in July, Gen. Pietro Badoglio, Mussolini’s former chief of staff and the...